This has got to be the worst example you could have used: clearly video is better for this, right? You are talking about a sequence of steps in a GUI... sure, the least important one of those steps might have a keyboard shortcut, but that would be something you'd find later (and I don't think anyone is suggesting replacing a quick reference card with a video) and isn't a "learning" step. A textual description of this is going to be extremely awkward, attempting to describe dialog panels and icons and explain the semantics of color choosers... even the process of actually using a gradient tool is something that involves angles and lines and mouse placement: it isn't some abstract transform or fill, it is something that has a required direction semantic.

I am 40, I learned to program using physical book instruction manuals, I absolutely love reading things, and yet it just feels so obvious that if I want to learn how to use a gradient tool I would want a video. If I couldn't get a video I would want an animation. If I couldn't get an animation I would want a flip book of screen shots. If I couldn't get a flip book of screen shots I would tolerate some illustrated prose... but if you couldn't even get me the illustrations I am frankly at an age where I simultaneously know that life is short and yet there is virtue in patience and so I would work on something else until I could find a video (or another human to show it to me in person, which would probably be the best option) rather than waste my time trying to interpret someone describing a purely graphical concept using text.